Learning To Cook (Reluctantly): Day 3

Look, I am going to drop a knowledge bomb on you, and it is kind of like a hydrogen bomb, but one made out of a lot of dreams and promises and good intentions. Nonetheless, it will transform the fiber of your being. You ready? You sure?

You can put tinfoil in the oven.

Everyone knew this? Really? I DID NOT KNOW THAT. I thought it would – I mean, it would be easy to say “start an oven fire” – but my imagination actually goes to a far darker place where the tinfoil somehow takes on a life of its own and blows up, and then shrivels like a crone’s face and starts climbing the over the oven walls, ultimately becoming sentient and demanding to live in my apartment and be treated with respect, like Barnabas Collins.

This isn’t based on nothing. When you were a kid, did you ever put potato chip bags in the microwave for a minute? No? Was that a thing kids with brothers and sisters and human friends didn’t do? Okay, this is what happens when you put potato chip bags in the microwave:

Yeah, it’s really cool.

So. Today I learned that potato chip bags aren’t made out of tinfoil, and you can line cooking tins with tinfoil. That lesson might have come sooner if I’d spent more time looking at the word “tinfoil” itself.

Also, ovens aren’t microwaves.

And then you can bake Brussels sprouts. My morning and afternoon eating consisted of another yogurt parfait and one piece of leftover quiche. Which were good, but we’ve already discussed them. Onward! To Brussels sprouts!

4. Bake for 20 minutes, stirring once half way through. Add your walnuts during the last 5 minutes if using. Enjoy!

I did not have balsamic vinegar. I used regular vinegar. My extensive research on this indicates that they are not actually the same thing.

Oh, well. I added bacon. This is what they looked like:

Funny thing – did you know you can microwave bacon? You put it in for a minute per piece (paper towel under it, paper towel over it). And then, boom, bacon. Crispy bacon. I’ve been paranoid about this because I remember my college roommate making relentless fun of his girlfriend for preparing bacon the wrong way (Did she try to fry it in a pan? Bake it? I don’t remember. What is the wrong way? What is the wrong way?) and the memory made me afraid to ever prepare bacon.

Also – why was my college roommate making such horrible fun of his girlfriend when she was cooking for him? Such horrible fun that I remember this 6 years later? Was that just their rapport? Maybe that was just banter that struck me as terrifying as the time?

The dynamic in Two For The Road always made me uncomfortable.

So, the Brussels sprouts came out well. I forgot to move them around halfway through, but they came out well, in spite of that.

But – PSYCH! – I made them so I could eat them for lunch the next day (today). For actual dinner I was driven by a desire to eat Earl the lowly tomato. What happened to Earl, you ask?

One commenter pointed out that it would make sense to do an English breakfast where I could basically just fry things up in a pan. Raise your hand if you were that commenter; that was a great idea.

I probably should have researched what that entailed more, but in the past few days I’ve mostly realized that frying things is fucking fun (just like drawing faces on food and anthropomorphizing them is). So, I chopped up Earl. I chopped up two sausages. I threw some olive oil in a pan and turned on the heat. Then I threw the sausages and Earl in together.

Then I said, “An egg? Why not, an egg?!” I said this aloud in my apartment. I live alone. It gets weird with all the potato chip bags being turned into tiny, crippled versions of their former selves.

I cracked an egg right in there and it went zzzgyedyggkguruhbhjjjjjsssssssssss. That’s the noise eggs make when you just drop them into frying things.

It looked absolutely disgusting.

This is what it looked like:

It tasted delicious. SUPER DELICIOUS.

I mean, I put it on a plate first, so that helped it look nicer.

Half of Earl still remains. He’s hanging out in a Zip-loc bag now, waiting for more adventures. It’s possible I’m just going to make this thing that… wow, research indicates really looks nothing whatsoever like English breakfast… again.

We should probably come up with a name for this skillet sausage, egg, tomato thing. “Dog’s Breakfast?” (Because it looks like a dog vomited it?) “Queen’s Breakfast?” (I’m suddenly against the monarchy? That’s out of character. I wanted to keep an English theme going I guess?) “2.5 For The Road?”

We’re going to need a name other than “Frying things is fucking fun.” Although FTFF has a ring to it.

Here’s a picture from Two For The Road that pretty much sums up how Two For The Road makes me feel.